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and stray cattle. And how many well-meaning nations, who would otherwise have remained in the most amicable disposition towards each other, have been brought to swords' points about the infringement or misconstruction of some treaty, which in an evil hour they had concluded by way of making their amity more sure.

Treaties at best are but complied with so long as interest requires their fulfilment; consequently, they are virtually binding on the weaker party only, or in plain truth, they are not binding at all. No nation will wantonly go to war with another, if it has nothing to gain thereby, and therefore needs no treaty to restrain it from violence; and if it have any thing to gain, I much question, from what I have witnessed of the righteous conduct of nations, whether any treaty could be made so strong that it could not thrust the sword through; nay, I would hold ten to one, the treaty itself would be the very source to which resort would be had to find a pretext for hostilities.

Thus, therefore, I conclude, that though it is the best of all policies for a nation to keep up a constant negociation with its neighbours, yet it is the summit of folly, for it ever to be beguiled into a treaty; for then comes on the non-fulfilment and infraction-then remonstrance, then altercation, then retaliation, then recrimination, and finally, open war. In a word, negociation is like courtship, a time of sweet words, gallant speeches, soft looks, and endearing caresses, but the marriage-ceremony is the signal for hostilities.

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CHAPTER IV.A. "GI # 15

How Peter Stuyvesant was greatly belied by his adversaries the Moss-troopers and his conduct thereupon.

IF my pains-taking reader be not somewhat perplexed, in the course of the ratiocination of my last chapter, he will doubtless at one glance perceive, that the great Peter, in concluding a treaty with his eastern neighbours, was guilty of a lamentable error and heterodoxy in politics. To this unlucky agreement may justly be ascribed a world of little infringements, altercations, negociations, and bickerings, which afterwards took place between the irreproach able Stuyvesant, and the evil-disposed council of Amphyctions. All these did not a little disturb the constitutional serenity of the good burghers of Mannahata; but in sooth they were so very pitiful in their nature and effects, that a grave historian, who grudges the time spent in any thing less than recording the fall of empires, and the revolution of worlds, would think them unworthy to be inscribed on his sacred page.

The reader is therefore to take it for granted, though I scorn to waste in the detail that time which my furrowed brow and trembling hand inform me is invaluable, that all the while the great Peter was occupied in those tremendous and bloody contests, that I shall shortly rehearse, there was a continued series of little, dirty, snivelling, skirmishes, scourings, broils, and maraudings, made on the eastern frontiers, by the moss-troopers of Connecticut. But like that mirror of chivalry, the sage and valorous Don Quixote, I leave these petty contests for some future Sancho Panza of a historian, while I reserve my prowess and my pen for achievements of higher dignity.

Now did the great Peter conclude, that his labours had

come to a close in the east, and that he had nothing to do but apply himself to the internal prosperity of his beloved Manhattoes. Though a man of great modesty, he could not help boasting that he had at length shut the temple of Janus; and that, were all rulers like a certain person who should be nameless, it would never be opened again. But the exultation of the worthy governor was put to a speedy check, for scarce was the treaty concluded, and hardly was the ink dried on the paper, before the crafty and discourteous council of the league sought a new pretence for re-illuming the flames of discord.

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It seems to be the nature of confederacies, republics, and such-like powers, that want the true masculine character, to indulge exceedingly in certain feminine panics and suspicions. Like some good lady of delicate and sickly virtue, who is in constant dread of having her ves tal purity contaminated or seduced; and who if a man do but take her by the hand, or look her in the face, is ready to cry out, rape! and ruin!-so these squeamish govern→ ments are perpetually on the alarm for the virtue of the country-every manly measure is a violation of the constitution every monarchy or other masculine government around them is laying snares for their seduction; and they are for ever detecting infernal plots, by which they were to be betrayed, dishonoured, and "brought upon the

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If any proof were wanting of the truth of these opinions, I would instance the conduct of a certain republic of our day, who, good dame, has already withstood so many plots and conspiracies against her virtue, and has so often come near being made "no better than she should be." would notice her constant jealousies of poor old England, who, by her own account, has been incessantly trying to sap her honour, though, from my soul, I never could believe the honest old gentleman meant her any rudeness. Whereas, on the contrary, I think I have several times

caught her squeezing hands, and indulging in certain amorous oglings with that sad fellow Bonaparte, who all the world knows to be a great despoiler of national virtue, to have ruined all the empires in his neighbourhood, and to have debauched every republic that came in his way; but so it is, these rakes seem always to gain singular favour with the ladies.

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But I crave pardon of my reader for thus wandering, and will endeavour, in some measure, to apply the foregoing remarks; for in the year 1651, we are told, that the great confederacy of the east accused the immaculate Peter, (the soul of honour and heart of steel,) that, by divers gifts and promises, he had been secretly endeavouring to instigate the Narrohigansett, (or Narraganset,) Mohaque,, and Pequot Indians, to surprize and massacre the Yankee settlements. "For," as the council slanderously observed, "the Indians round about for divers hundred miles cercute, seeme to have drunke deep of an intoxicating cupp, att or from the Manhatoes against the English, whoe have sought their good both in bodily and spirituall respects."

History does not make mention how the great council of the Amphyctions came by this precious plot; whether it were honestly bought at a fair market price, or discovered by sheer good fortune. It is certain, however, that they examined divers Indians, who all swore to the fact, as sturdily as though they had been so many Christian troopers: and to be more sure of their veracity, the sage council previously made every mother's son of them devoutly drunk, remembering an old and trite proverb, which it is not necessary for me to repeat.

Though descended from a family which suffered much injury from the losel Yankees of those times, my great grandfather having had a yoke of oxen and his best pacer stolen, and having received a pair of black eyes and a bloody nose in one of these border wars; and my grandfather,

when a very little boy tending pigs, having been kidnapped and severely flogged by a long-sided Connecticut schoolmaster; yet I should have passed over all these wrongs with forgiveness and oblivion :-I could even have suffered them to have broken Evert Ducking's head, to have kicked the doughty Jacobus Van Curlet and his ragged regiment out of doors, carried every hog into captivity, and depopulated every hen-roost on the face of the earth with perfect impunity; but this wanton attack upon one of the most gallant and irreproachable heroes of modern times, is too much even for me to digest, and has overset, with a single puff, the patience of the historian, and the forbearance of the Dutchman.

Oh reader, it was false-I swear to thee, it was false ! -If thou hast any respect for my word,-if the undeviating character for veracity which I have endeavoured to maintain throughout this work, has its due weight with thee, thou wilt not give thy faith to this tale of slander; for I pledge my honour and my immortal fame to thee, that the gallant Peter Stuyvesant was not only innocent of this foul conspiracy, but would have suffered his right arm, or even his wooden leg, to consume with slow and everlasting flames, rather than attempt to destroy his enemies in any other way than open, generous warfare. Beshrew those caitiff scouts, that conspired to sully his honest name by such an imputation!

Peter Stuyvesant, though he perhaps had never heard of a Knight Errant, yet had he as true a heart of chivalry as ever beat at the round table of King Arthur. There was a spirit of native gallantry, a noble and generous hardihood diffused through his rugged manners, which altogether gave unquestionable tokens of a heroic mind. He was, in truth, a hero of chivalry struck off by the hand of nature at a single heat; and though she had taken no further care to polish and refine her workmanship, he stood forth a miracle of her skill.

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